Remarks by the Ambassador on the 80th Anniversary of D-Day

June 6, 1944, was an important moment in World War II. On that day, the Allied forces under the US-British command carried out massive landing operation codenamed “Overlord” in the North of Nazi-occupied France, opening the second front in the joint war effort by the anti-Hitler coalition led by the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain, which culminated in May of 1945 with the signing of the Act of capitulation of the Nazi Germany. In Russia it would inconceivable to deny that it was our common Victory over the common enemy. We remember and honour the valor and sacrifice of every Allied soldier. We will never forget our brothers-in-arms, including Irish men and women who joined our common struggle against fascism. It is equally inconceivable to question that it was the Soviet Union that has decided the outcome of the struggle against Nazism even before the D-Day, with almost 4/5 of the entire German Armed Forces destroyed at the Eastern front. To deny this is considered to be baseness, an insult to the memory of the 27 million of the Soviet people perished in the war against Nazism.

         Sadly, that is exactly what current leaders of the West have been doing recently, and they did it again in the context of the 80th anniversary of D-Day. In their presentation of D-Day as well as the entire WW2 they rewrite history, trying to erase from it any reference to the USSR and its people. They talk about D-Day as the single pivoting moment in the World War II which made the defeat of Hitler possible. The truth is that operation “Overlord”, no matter how important, significant and heroic, came too late to be decisive – by June of 1944 the Soviet Red Army had already broken the backbone of the Hitler’s war machine and was advancing towards Berlin. The US and UK waited with the decision to open the second front for a long time since July of 1941 when this issue was first discussed between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, until it became clear that any further delay would simply leave them no space in the post-war world order. This is not to belittle the bravery and valor of the Allied soldiers, it is a statement of fact, supported by the wealth of documents from the US, UK and Soviet archives. Secondly, the Western leaders, betraying the memory of the joint struggle against Nazis, made an empty and petty gesture of not inviting Russia to the ceremony of the commemoration of the D-day. Instead, they have invited Zelenskiy – leader of the Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi regime, one of the main features of which has been glorifying infamous Hitler’s collaborators as national heroes of Ukraine. That is a shame. Even worse is that they try to exploit the theme of the struggle against German Nazism during the World War II to construct justification of their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine framing it as a “another fight between democracy and tyranny”.

         All that reveals a total lack of human decency – someone should advise people in power now in the US and Europe that there are things in life that you simply cannot play political games with.